


the corroding of the sun

by Taste_of_Suburbia



Category: Dark Angel (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Ames is kinda a selfish bastard, Angst, Artist Alec, But he loves Alec, Childhood Friends, Desperation, Falling In Love, First Time, Forbidden Fruit, Forbidden Love, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Horror, Indecision, Internal Conflict, Kinda, M/M, Mindfuck, Minor Violence, Pining, Romance, Trope Bingo Round 12, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, You Have Been Warned, maybe? - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 22:36:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18455999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia
Summary: Ames was moving on to better things and Alec was in his same old spots, trapped in his same old habits, stagnant and shadowed and already almost a ghost in Ames’ memory.High School AU & Human AU.





	the corroding of the sun

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill on my Trope Bingo [card](https://immolate-the-silence.dreamwidth.org/30129.html) for Forbidden Fruit. 
> 
> Lyrics before the fic itself taken from Oceans of Slumber’s ‘The Decay of Disregard.’

 

_~I feel something cruel within me, calling out_

_It calls my heart to wander, far from here_

_It troubles my dreams, the thoughts of leaving_

_It claws at me~_

* * *

 

The end of senior year was fast approaching.

Ames could practically taste the long sought after absence from his uncaring yet still oppressive parents, the more challenging course material, the fascinating lectures and rigorous debates, and especially not having to put up with those that cared for nothing other than partying and drinking for more than a mere semester until they were college dropouts and Ames was sprinting far, far ahead of them, earning point after point just like those video games he used to play when he was a kid. He was long past yearning for the opportunity to prove himself, to see how far his ambitions would take him: graduate school and beyond? It was too tantalizing a thought: his life stretching out into a vast ocean before him, one that he’d walk on,  _not_ drown in like all the losers around him. 

His front door was ajar and he sighed, unsurprised, locking it behind him and trudging up the darkened stairs.

Except for  _one_ loser. 

Alec liked darkened spaces, always pulled down the drapes in his parent’s living room before retreating upstairs, flicking each light off as he went. He enjoyed skulking around and making himself as small as possible in any space, and like a cat he forever prowled, always on the hunt for whatever he could get his hands on: junk food and candy and spare change and pirated CDs and unlined paper and even just a look of exasperation from Ames. Maybe he knew it could never  _just_ be exasperation, not with all their wishful years. Small and sulking as he was he was  _never_ quiet. He could talk a mile a minute, even while shoving more Cheetos than was reasonable into his gaping mouth. He’d sneak up on Ames in a moment and talk about literally anything and everything that had crossed his mind since the last moment Ames had seen him. 

When they were mere children he would grab for whatever part of Ames he could reach, a palm, an ankle, a knuckle and he would draw, spirals and jagged shards and lyrics from half-remembered songs, words that Alec never spoke but would puncture Ames’ heart with significance all the same.

Inevitably, he’d have to scrub these words and designs away before his mother caught eye of them, but he missed the vigorous rubbing of soap over his skin when Alec grew up and realized drawing on people was, as he quoted it, lame.

Months of sulking and biting his nails drove Ames insane until he forced Alec into art class, literally, only working out the details of enrollment once it was clear that Alec had a talent. After that, everything changed. He would carry a pad under his arm everywhere he went, a pencil tucked behind his ear or held tightly between lips that were still trying to talk. He’d go through those sketchbooks like crazy and Ames kept him well-supplied so he’d never get it into his thick head to steal them.

He’d always be drawing even though he could never sit still, eyes shifting so fast Ames couldn’t fathom how they could take in anything and remember it so vividly to recreate it in under ten minutes, pencil tapping on his jeans when it wasn’t pressed to paper, always running after Ames even when his jerky motions as he hunched over the page were frantic.

There were so many hours of Ames’ life that were tied up in Alec, mostly watching Alec sketch landscapes and random objects and caricatures and an occasional passerby. He’d draw Ames’ scowl exactly how he saw it in the mirror; quickly capture his laugh until it was forever immortalized on the page, so that Ames could remember that Alec  _did_ make him laugh; brutally capture his stare and the sharp set of his shoulders and the gleam in his eye whenever he thought Alec wasn’t watching. 

But Alec was always watching, always hiding, knowing the best moments to shut his mouth; that’s what made him such a good thief.

And then he’d gotten kicked out of art class and Ames realized, devastatingly, that Alec’s juvenile antics weren’t phases at all. Alec was never planning to change, not even to suit Ames.

And still, Ames kept him around like the bad penny he was, not to reform him or to tear down the person his parents so desperately wanted Ames to be, because  _he_ wanted to be that person too, but because there was something in Alec that kept Ames  _close_ , like Alec was gnawing away at his willpower without even trying. It was like stepping backwards, like falling backward into a pile of leaves that strangely resembled Alec’s hundreds of sketches. 

Maybe it was his boyish, innocent looks that bordered on bad boy; or how he could fill Ames’ head up with all these ideas and words that he could cling to hours later when he was lonely and indecisive as to where his life should go; or maybe because he had known Alec for so long that he was now glued into his skin, that Alec would never let him leave, that Ames would hunt him down just for one more useless, indulgent moment.

Curiosity had led to fevered kisses, hurried and sloppy so that he didn’t have to live his stupid mistakes for more than a moment or obsess over the consequences afterward. Kissing had given way to fumbling that was even more awkward than the groping thereafter, given Ames had never been with a girl before Alec, and then they’d fallen into bed together and Ames could forever afterward taste the sweat of Alec’s skin as sure as his own even if they hadn’t repeated the same mistake.

But they had and Ames never cared to lie with anyone else, to justify his actions because there  _was_ no one else other than Alec. Simple as that. 

He had more important things to worry about. Even so, going off to college and leaving Alec behind wasn’t something Ames could rationally think about.

Maybe Alec would follow him but it wouldn’t last forever, this childish daydream.

_It’s time to put childish things aside_ , his father had always told him, even when he was  _still_ a child. 

And maybe Alec really  _was_ the child in him, that innocence and nonchalance, that petulance and sarcasm, that creative and whip smart attitude that kept the fire lit between them. 

But Ames was moving on to better things and Alec was in his same old spots, trapped in his same old habits, stagnant and shadowed and already almost a ghost in Ames’ memory.

The door to his room was also ajar and the darkness deepened so that Ames’ eyes couldn’t quite adjust. The air smelt stale and a low hum of music filtered out into the hallway and Ames tried to think for  _just one second_ , not having this, not coming home to this. Tried to imagine what life would be like when Alec wasn’t hanging out in his room and wasn’t down the hall or two buildings away and just wasn’t  _anywhere_ but in Ames’ cold  _cold_ heart where he cared nothing for anyone and would step on just about everyone to climb his way to the very  _very_ top. 

He flicked the lamp on and the past fourteen years with Alec rushed through his head like a maelstrom, assaulting his determination, preying on the softness he had ever truly shown to  _one_ person. His life spun and weaved and rippled before him and yet made way for part two, steeling his resolve, sharpening all his rusting edges. 

Ames’ nostrils flared and his hands unclenched and he smoothed out his blazer.

Alec was slouched in his favorite armchair as _always_ , flipping through comic books he annoyingly littered Ames’ bedroom with, among other things: unwashed clothes and gym sneakers, very lightly worn textbooks and half-empty rolls of mementos, enough change to make Alec’s pockets jingle and enough hair spray to make Ames crack a window. There were also sheets folded and smashed at the bottom of his backpack, crumpled and torn and unwanted, strewn haphazardly over the bed and the floor, sheets upon sheets of Alec’s sketches, in varying degrees of completion and completely forgotten about once Alec disposed of them. Ames ignored them when Alec was about, but when his room was actually  _his_ again he picked up each and every one, smoothing them out and trying to tape pieces back together, keeping them tucked away in a box with a key. 

They were Ames’ most treasured possessions, drawings that weren’t even his yet somehow  _became_ his. 

He wouldn’t have Alec knowing, didn’t know how Alec would respond, so this was just a secret for Ames to keep, a reminder of why he kept Alec in his life when they were nothing alike, when they most likely wouldn’t see each other again after the summer, when Ames’ parents were constantly trying to separate them like they were a modern day Romeo and Juliet. Except... Ames’ parents couldn’t know that he and Alec were sexually involved. They kept so few tabs on him as it was, only caring about his good grades enough to get him into a good school and out of their hair. Only caring enough about Alec that he should be out of Ames’ life before he destroyed it.

Alec didn't destroy things though; he destroyed his own life sure, but he never dragged Ames down a single step unless he couldn’t help it.

He pushed aside thoughts of Alec and left him to his own devices. He needed to get ready for the dinner his parents had insisted on tonight, where’d he’d be sucking up until someone in the admissions department for one of the numerous schools he was considering was flattered enough by his charm and good graces to hand him a letter of acceptance.

His parents would make it easy for him and they’d no longer think up insults and excuses to get Alec to leave and most importantly, Ames would never have to look back at this stifling,  _decaying_ mansion too small for his dreams, too much like a cage, too contrary to Ames’ vision of himself. 

“You look sexy.”

Ames had a vague thought that Alec looked like a tragic poet, head resting in his hand, thoughtful expression pinching his eyebrows and crinkling his forehead, eyes hungry and moist and expressive. He had a pressing desire to put pencil to paper and capture him even though he didn’t know the first thing about drawing. Alec had that effect on him: the effect where he could pull Ames in just by looking like he didn’t care about a thing in the world.

Or maybe, just  _one_ thing. 

“Don’t say that when my parents are here. I’m supposed to look like a completely professional and responsible high school graduate.”

Alec withered Ames’ attitude with a sigh, idly flipping through his comic too quickly to read. “You know me, I’ll be long gone by then. And don’t forget, you haven't graduated  _yet._ ” 

“Shut up,” Ames growled, lacking bite.

Alec used to hang around as if it were his duty to piss his parents off and rain down even harder on their prodigal son, now he just skulked away at the mere sound of the front door opening, even  _before_ his mother bade him to come down. He’d sneak out the back door, hall devoid of the sound of his footsteps, and there was never a time when Ames didn’t want to follow. 

Ames tried on three silk shirts and four blazers in varying shades of blue before settling on one. He let Alec pick the shirt, a burgundy that Ames insisted was too much but Alec refuted with a few words. “It’s you. The  _you_ you want to be.”

Funny, but when Alec said the least amount of words he actually made the  _most_ sense. 

Realizing he still had an hour left and deciding to touch up his hair and obsess about cologne later, he carefully sat down on his bed and again poured though all the college admissions packets. He practically knew them all by heart now, the bright pictures and the descriptions that were supposed to entice you, the dizzying array of concentrations and concentrations  _within_ those concentrations. 

He  _hated_ being this person sometimes, wanted to choose blindly because of it. Every time he glanced over at Alec, drawing, skimming through his comics, absentmindedly biting his fingers it  _hurt._ And each time Alec glanced up, meeting his gaze, smirking, it was like he himself was driving the blade into Ames’ gut. 

This wasn’t a choice, not anymore, he’d  _already_ made it. 

So why did he always yield his rationality to emotion? The ice in his heart to gently licking flames?

He knew Alec was never going to college. Ames had gone through a period of making it seem irresistible but Alec hadn’t wavered, had slipped down to making it seem possible but Alec had never bended an inch.

It was like he was determined to just drift through his life when he absolutely  _knew_ that Ames wouldn’t do the same. 

It was almost like he  _wanted_ to walk down a road as far away from Ames’ as possible. 

Ames didn’t want to fight even though he saw that decision as nothing but willful defeat. “Mom’s taking me out of town this weekend. The college tours are starting. We should slip in that art shop just when it opens tomorrow morning before I have to leave. They’ve got those pens you want on sale this weekend.”

“Everything’s a riot when you’ve got no time to think,” Alec hummed and Ames watched him, under the pale light of the lamp, looking at everything  _but_ Ames. 

“What?”

Alec chewed on the skin of his thumb, eyes flicking up to Ames’ briefly before skittering away. “Nothing. Just something I heard on the radio the other day.”

Like the sketches, Ames also kept a small but packed notebook, filled from page edge to page edge with lyrics that Alec offered, words that made no sense strewn together, each line like a stray piece of Alec, snapping like a puzzle piece into Ames’ memory.

And lower now… “All the lights are gone but you’re waiting on the phone and you’re breathing like a leech.”

Ames rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling, Alec’s words weaving together like a chaotic spiderweb, slipping and sliding into all his cracks and crevices until he was breathing nothing but  _pure_ Alec. 

He blinked and Alec was curled up against his side, mouthing against his skin, Ames massaging his head until he was purring, until he was arching his back and Ames was swallowing him down and their sweat had long since mingled and chilled and painted the room in their childish innocence, their inane lust, the affection that Ames had for this boy pressed into his skin the most foolish part of all.

And Ames was the other boy, held here in this room, praying to be unable to leave.

The front door slammed and Ames jumped, Alec slithering away from his side.

He held a hand up, a decision made on a whim clawing its way up his throat, peering out through his lips in near triumph. “Wait.”

Alec froze, caught in the moment like prey, eyes wide and yet so unforgiving as they held Ames in that same moment Ames himself had created, just one moment in a series of all their moments, all strung together like a maze they had never built a way out of.

“You said it yourself,” Alec taunted, each word a slice to Ames’ resolve, corroding everything Ames wanted to be and yet at the cost of everything in him that was good: loyalty and commitment and laughter and the innocence that once was lost could never be redeemed. “Why not jump off the cliff now?”

Except it wasn’t Alec that was jumping.

“It’s just like tearing off a band-aid, right?”

Take Alec out of his room, all the articles and wrappers and words hanging from the ceiling like fraying streamers and there would be  _nothing_ else. A bed, a dresser, a stack of college applications so high it was on the verge of toppling. Take down all the posters from the walls and the junk obscuring the surface of his dresser and the  _one_ person whose presence took up all the space and all the air, hell, fed him oxygen and granted him just that little ounce of space or he would be crowded and suffocating and he wouldn’t be a  _person_ at all. 

He was  _afraid_ of losing something no one else had. 

And he was afraid of remaining here, never changing, never questioning, never knowing if he would come to regret it.

Alec’s eyes were like two red hot coals burning their special way into Ames’ belly. Once there they lingered, heavy as five pound weights each, sucking everything that was uniquely Ames  _down down down._

“So Ames White is going to make a name for himself.”

His mother’s voice was far out of Ames’ awareness and yet he still, hurriedly,  _pleadingly_ grasped Alec’s throat, surprised at the strength in his grip, even more surprised that Alec didn’t struggle. 

Sometimes, it was like he was sweating underneath the tree just below his window, weight bearing down on his shovel, building himself a hole, just digging and digging and digging until two foot became four foot became eight foot became twelve foot.

And then the dirt was rushing up at him,  _strangling_ and he was falling backward into Alec and tangled up in him even though he was built better and faster and stronger and Alec shouldn’t have been able to take up that much room, gain just enough control to set Ames on edge, intent on dominance. 

And there were drawings pasted  _everywhere,_ on the floor, on the ceiling, on walls in random places, creeping into Ames’ dreams and slipping in between Ames’  _bones._

Ames didn’t fight, content here, where everything sparkled…  _Alec…_ and everyone smiled…  _Alec…_ and all of his doubts were swallowed whole, devoured by the small, rail-thin figure tucked up against him, the one kissing him with absolute certainty, understanding, abandon…

And then the world spun until it shifted back into a darkened room, Ames’ hands full, his heart even fuller to near bursting, every emotion he had ever felt for Alec seeping out of him.

It was an entirely foolish notion that Alec would linger here like a ghost,  _was it?,_ forever trapped in Ames’ room, the scratch of pencil on paper and the tap tap tapping of a mind that never rested and the low rush of speech that could never be quieted. 

Ames squeezed until the light faded out like the pop of a dead light bulb, until the air rushed back into his lungs and it turned frigid like the chill pushing in through his window, until he realized his hands were shaking and there were fingernail marks there, bloody scratches like half-formed words, slippery letters that veered and twisted and ones that no amount of soap could erase.

_This isn’t love. It’s childish infatuation._

_And yet, Ames, you’re still playing._

He spun around the room like a man on the verge of collapse, searching for meaning and clawing at memory, hunting for a heart long since buried. Alec wasn’t hiding and he wasn’t waiting on the boughs of his favorite tree and he wasn’t slouched in class half-listening and he wasn’t nicking mementos and gumdrops and jellybeans from the candy store downtown and he wasn’t following Ames like a shadow, like a tragic artist after his muse, like a fire chasing after sustenance.

And Ames’ hands were still shaking, his heart racing and freezing and nearly cracking as he ran, weaving in between the dorms, past the lake bordering the east edge of campus, through a neighborhood of decayed leaves and mouths that moved but never made a sound, up and up the stairs and into a darkened room that was as dark as his heart and where there was no light but the edges of papers as they fell from the box like a torrent of desperation, so many pages…

**FIN**

 

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [that itch, it keeps calling](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18749971) by [Taste_of_Suburbia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_of_Suburbia/pseuds/Taste_of_Suburbia)




End file.
